Koi? Goi? Koromo? Goromo?
We have seen many people are confused about Japanese koi words when “koi” becomes “goi” in certain words such as Nishikigoi, tategoi, Benigoi, “koromo” becomes “goromo” in Aigoromo and Budogoromo. This happens a lot in the Japanese language.
There are voiceless sounds and voiced sounds in Japanese, some specific voiceless sounds would turn into voiced sounds under certain conditions, there are rules of sound change but let’s skip the complicated explanation here and focus on koi words frequently used.
Some Examples of Japanese Koi Words:
[koiこい→goiごい]
Nishikigoi
tategoi
Benigoi
oyagoi
[koromoころも→goromoごろも]
Aigoromo
Budogoromo
[kiwaきわ→giwaぎわ]
kamisorigiwa
ushirogiwa
[sumiすみ→zumiずみ]
tsubozumi
katazumi
[sashiさし→zashiざし]
maezashi
Basically if you have something in front of “koi” “koromo” “sumi”, their sounds will change. (You can see little dashes in Japanese hiragana when sounds change. Called voiced consonant mark)
Learn more Koi words, please refer to our Koi Glossary.
Author: RINKO Online
RINKO was published in 1962 as the first Nishikigoi magazine in the world. Dr Takeo Kuroki organized Oita Airinkai (koi club) with 53 members. He wrote the most articles which were written on A5 size paper, printed in black and white and 28 pages long with his wife’s artwork on the front cover. When Dr Kuroki met our founder Shuji Fujita, they consulted on publishing his first book “Nishikigoi”. This created hundreds and thousands of “koi-kichi” (koi lovers/people crazy about koi). Their work together resulted in the success of RINKO Issue 15, the first cover printed in color. Since then their journey of introducing Nishikigoi culture to the world has blossomed.
